Very funny title with excellent art.

There are a lot of food manga out there but I feel this is the most creative. Some of the other stories you feel like the mangaka go out of their way to introduce all these weird things you can eat; here all the monsters are quite the classic fantastical creatures, yet the world building just seems logical and make sense.

Very light-hearted and great read on a Saturday afternoon. The flavor of this work forms great synergism with simple snacks like fruits and nuts with a cup of tea.

Give it a shot: it's true that the pace is slow and is kinda uninteresting for a bit of chapters, but around chapter 20-30 it changes pace and the plot finally unravels, we could say "beginning" the real story and even the worldbuilding itself.
So while you're "bearing with" the initial chapters, treat them like cute little fantasy slice of life standalone chapters, while knowing that this IS going somewhere. It will be easier on the reader, and you won't skip on the still nice details.

The focus is hardly on cooking, most of the focus is of how you'd survive a long journey into a massive dungeon. Yes there are at least a couple pages every chapter dedicated to food, but that is an important part of surviving a long journey in a dungeon that's often ignored.

Just talking about it already makes it more interesting than most dungeon type stories.

There is also a LOT of world development, they explain how the revival system works for instance, it has rules like you need the corpse, for example.

Which is very interesting and creates very interesting things like people who work and get paid to go into the dungeon and bring corpses of dead adventurers back to be revived.

How everything works is very detailed, like the monsters ecosystems.

It's basically a really cool biology study of monsters and a really realistic and believable look at dungeon and how they could exist and be explored in a realistic environment where people don't have infinite food, or the ability to carry anything they want in magical inventories.

It's really cool and you should give it a chance.

There are a number of nice cooking manga out there but never have I encountered one involving dungeon monsters as ingredients!
Quite an interesting concept!
This should get more scanlations!

Update: After reading 19 chapters, I'm glad to say this series is still pretty fun. The characters are very likeable and they have good chemistry. Fortunately, this isn't SIMPLY a story about cooking - it also has a solid plot and world depth. A lot of interesting details and concepts about their world and magic. The food stuff just ties in well with the plot

... Last updated on November 23rd, 2015, 8:02am

Ryoko Kui cements herself as one of the leading manga artists of the moment with this title. She gave us a taste of her boundless creativity in her short story compilations, but with this, her first long story, she confirms and refines her best traits.

So far there's no flaw in this work. The artwork is simple and clean but exquisitely crafted, the characters unique and charismatic, the story engaging and, best of all, the world the story takes place in is very well constructed.

Not only the premise is very original, it also works really well. The idea of mixing dungeon crawling with cooking may sound strange at first, but it makes perfect sense in this situation with the characters not having enough money to buy proper equipment and supplies, and the food bits don't get in the way of the story nor feel tacked on.

The author is probably a big fan of dungeon crawling games; even though there's plenty of humor coming from character interaction, I think there's nothing that comes as close as Dark Souls in manga format. The battle segments aren't just the usual "swing your sword and shoot some spells" but usually show a good sense of strategy, with the characters having to sort out a good plan and work as a team to overcome their challenges.

The fantasy genre is full of tropes, so it's hard to make something that feels fresh, but Ryoko Kui has managed to do it. With the author being so proficient at so many levels, this is a must read for any fantasy fan.

I started out with this series early on thinking it was just another fantasy food manga, which I like. I’m currently up to chapter 74. The plot ends up being multi-layered after the first 20 or 30 chapters, though, while still keeping the food theme as part of it. The party has multiple goals so it is slow, but well-paced. It doesn’t feel like things are dragging out pointlessly. In addition, the art is amazing and varied; I admire the mangaka’s skill conveying characterization.

While the protagonist is a happy-go-lucky simple guy, he doesn’t get annoying because all the different characters balance well without feeling overwhelming or repetitive. A must-read!

It has been a while since I have seen a new fantasy manga that didn't involve some resurrected prick and this one has some great character. If you ever played a pencil and paper rpg long enough, you will probably run into players who butcher everything for one reason or another. The party chemistry is hilarious and the art works well with the story. The dwarf is simply awesome.

... Last updated on September 3rd, 2015, 4:21pm

Awesome art, interesting story about cooking in fantasy world..
what a unique idea..
LMAO

Dungeon Meshi is amazing. Go read it now if you aren't already.

No, really. There's no other way to describe this manga other than: 10/10 would use as a cookbook.

I've always been a fan of Kui Ryoko's work ever since reading The Dragon's Seven Adorable Children, and Dungeon Meshi might just be her finest yet. She's great at mixing the fantastical with the very real. This might just be the most realistic cooking manga I've ever read--except the ingredients are all, uh, well, monsters in a dungeon.

The characters are all really lovable too, and they all have distinct personalities which really shine through their interactions with each other. (Marcille is my favorite, but Laius's propensity to want to eat everything is great fun too, as well as Chillchack's exasperation with everyone else and Senshi's absolute and complete dedication to cooking.)

Every chapter is an absolute joy to read. So much so that all I can say is: Hurry, someone license this!

... Last updated on December 18th, 2015, 1:17am

I could go on and on about the ways this series is great and I have in a review I wrote about it. To summarize that review: Dungeon Meshi is a series that sticks to its somewhat weird Wizardry/D&D-inspired setting down to how these adventurers aren't trying to save the world, just trying to do one small thing within it. Interesting cooking abounds, the series is hilarious, Marcille is a great major female character (not a love interest, that's a plus), internal consistency is down pat. Well done, Kui-sensei.

Full review:
https://terrenceswiff.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/dungeon-meshi/